


Steel, Stone, and Fire

by Shadaras



Category: Avatar: Legend of Korra
Genre: BDSM, Bondage, Implied Torture, Knives, M/M, Masochism, Psychological Torture, Sadism, Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-31
Updated: 2012-07-31
Packaged: 2017-11-11 02:58:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,485
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/473745
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shadaras/pseuds/Shadaras
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>General Iroh II has been captured by Equalist forces. He doesn't crack easily; it takes a true master to break him into pieces. (and a good heart, to put it back together again.)</p><p>TW: torture (psychological, physical)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Steel, Stone, and Fire

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Rikku](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rikku/gifts).



Isolation didn’t bother him. He simply knelt, head bowed but spine straight and unbroken, on the hard metal floor of the prison and meditated, drawing his focus deep within so that nothing his jailers did could touch him. Sometimes he exercised, recalling stories of his great-granduncle, his namesake, and his time in prison. The guards, it seemed, also remembered those stories, and came into his cell to electrocute him with trapped lightning if ever he made a concerted effort to keep in shape.

So instead Iroh meditated, kneeling on the metal floor, ignoring the metal wrapped around ankles and wrists that made it impossible for him to build up the momentum necessary to break free.

It took a week for his captors to realize that isolation was not going to break him. It took them another week to realize that he could fast longer than they were willing to allow, for if he died they would never uncover the secrets he buried. That he could slow his metabolism by simply sitting still and breathing helped, of course.

The next step, apparently, was to keep a continuous racket going – he wasn’t sure where they played the radio, but he knew it was there, blaring into his cell. It wasn’t precisely non-stop, no; that he could have tuned out far more easily. Instead, it played a strange, unsettling, combination of static, mechanical noises, and untuned instrumental pieces. The last was easily the most bothersome, because Iroh knew each and every one of the classic melodies they were ruining, had heard most of them played live at one point in time or another, and as hard as he tried, meditation didn’t stop the dissonant chords from weaving their way into his head.

He tried not to let it show, but something – maybe the way his jaw clenched, or his eyes more tightly closed, or the infinitesimal rocking of his body as he tried to account for the growing soreness of his knees – told the guards watching what bothered him most, and the orchestras swelled in all their horrid, ear-bleeding, you-could-call-it-glory.

So, really, being taken out of that cell and brought into a clean room filled with instruments clearly _meant_ to make him bleed was a vast improvement, because of the blessed _silence_ that suddenly cushioned his ears.

Before they removed him, they blasted him with that cursed electric glove so that he couldn’t move, and clamped his arms tight behind his back and hobbled his legs so that he could barely walk (especially with his muscles still scrambled from the electricity). From their grunts, the guards were struggling to carry him out of the cell. Iroh didn’t show his smirk, but instead made as if his muscles were weaker than they truly were, and was rewarded by a curse as he was manhandled down the corridor.

Inside this new room, they made sure to unbind him one limb at a time, and snap each limb into its new cuff as quickly as possible. If it weren’t so irritating, Iroh would be flattered, almost embarrassed even, by how scared they were of him. He was very well-trained, and had a strong bloodline of firebending, but he certainly wasn’t the most skilled firebender when it came to quickly bending with one limb. As it was, he didn’t open his mouth, or even react any more than he could help. If he could unsettle them, he might be able to make them fear him enough that when he _did_ break free (or was rescued; he was confident his friends were simply working their way through a plan, knowing he wouldn’t break for a long time) they would simply run instead of trying to fight.

The finishing touch on this particular torture was, it seemed, to strip him of all his clothes. Iroh raised his eyebrows at that, wiggling them at the masked guard when he seemed to be facing him. The guard quickly looked away and finished his job before retreating with his fellow, leaving Iroh alone and naked in a cold steel room, arms bound out and slightly above his head, feet wide-spread but solidly supporting his weight. He couldn’t easily move, but he wasn’t really uncomfortable, either; it was a better position than he had expected.

Time was hard to track when there weren’t any clocks, nor a sun to watch cross the sky in a burning brand, so when at last someone entered the room once more Iroh could not tell how much time had passed. He opened his eyes, expecting just another black-masked guard, but instead finding the bone-and-blood coloured mask of Amon.

The mask always smirked, but Iroh had the distinct feeling that Amon himself was smiling as he said, “Hello, General.”

Iroh barely blinked in response.

Amon leaned closer, and laid one pallid finger under his chin. Iroh couldn’t hide his flinch as the same hands that had taken away the bending of so many good warriors now touched his bare skin. He had nothing to hide behind anymore but control. He closed his eyes, and thought he heard a soft laugh as the finger left his flesh. “You wish to make this a challenge, General?” His gentle tone faded, replaced by gun-shot steel. “So be it.”

Soft boots on metal. The _click_ of a lock opening. The hiss of metal hinges.

Iroh wanted, more than anything else, to see what Amon was doing, but if he opened his eyes he would be admitting that fear overruled his self-control.

_Clink. Hiss._

Steps.

“You could simply inform me of your bases’ positions, General.” Amon’s voice sounded hollow, echoing – he spoke as if through a tunnel, not a thin mask.

He stayed silent and perfectly still, concentrating only on his breath, on the constancy of air moving in his nose, down his throat, into his lungs, filling and holding for a moment before releasing in a steady stream back up and out his mouth, on the way his ribs expanded and with them his chest, on the pure physicality of the simple, endless motion of life.

“Very well.”

The chill metal against his skin was not a surprise. He knew the feel of a blade against his chest very well; he had lost duels, been held captive (though for shorter times), been in close combat. None of them were quite the same as what Amon did now. Iroh found himself focusing down on that slender point of contact, where steel traced an exquisite pattern against his body (not _quite_ enough pressure to break his skin, but so _close_ …), until he could barely feel anything else – not the cuffs on his limbs nor the wall he was bound to, nor even the fingers against his neck, slender fingertips aligned right over his pulse, counting the beats and the not-so-controlled breaths.

Then Amon pulled the knife quickly down his chest, right between his pectoral muscles, and Iroh gasped, the first true sound he’d made since entering the room, and jerked in his chains.

His eyes still did not open.

The knife stilled for a moment. When its motion returned, the pressure increased until Iroh couldn’t tell if he was bleeding or just thought he was because there was no possible way the knife could be so firmly against his skin without—

Another sharp pull, this time across his hip.

Another unwanted gasp, another uncontrollable spasm.

Iroh forced himself to stop thinking about the knife, about Amon, about anything but his breathing. Simple physical cycles. Mechanics of the body. The one thing your opponent cannot stop without taking your life, and they will not wish to do that so long as you hold information they consider important.

It was, however, very difficult to focus on breathing when he couldn’t keep it steady. With each kiss of the knife, no matter how hard he tried, his breathing and heart sped up. With each cut, Iroh felt his body warm, his bloodflow increase in a very distinct – and, at the moment, horrifying – way. He leaned his head back against the metal wall and began letting out a stream of curses directed equally at Amon, the universe, and his own body.

That Amon’s laugh, dark and deep and rich as molasses candy, simply intensified his response _did not help_.

By the time Iroh was returned to his isolation (the music, thankfully, was not playing), his body was a mass of scratches and cuts that Amon had _so nicely_ bound for him with delicate fingers that most certainly did _not_ linger in a way that his body (just his body, nothing more than his body, never anything more than his body) enjoyed.

By the time Iroh was shut in his cage, he was crying, tears falling down his blank face as if he didn’t even know they were there.

By the time Iroh was rescued, his body was scarred, and his heart was stone.

**Author's Note:**

> This is [Rikku's](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Rikku/pseuds/Rikku) fault. She asked me to write LoK torturefic. I gave her this.
> 
> This is quite possibly going to be continued in some manner, if I can figure out how to write Bolin at all well. Just so you know. :3


End file.
